Eddie Was a Hero
by Vol lady
Summary: In Ellicott City, Maryland (just outside of Baltimore) a man named Eddie Hermond was killed in a flash flood the other day, trying and succeeding in saving a woman caught in the flood waters. The word "hero" is overused these days, but this man really was a hero. The people who knew him said his actions were "so Eddie." This little BV blurb is in his memory.


Eddie Was a Hero

She was just a saloon girl, no one special. No family in the world to give a darn about her, but everyone who had interaction with her at all liked her. She led the singing in the saloon every night, and even if you were losing a lot of money at the poker table, she would get you to sing. Even if you could not dance, she would get you to dance with her. She made people happy.

He was just a regular man, except that he was a negro man in predominantly white Stockton, and except that he had given up his life to save the saloon girl. He didn't even know her very well. He worked in the blacksmith shop and never frequented the white saloon where she worked, but she was in trouble when their paths crossed. He tried to help.

Eddie was delivering a load of bear traps to an outlying ranch when he it happened. Betsy was traveling back to Stockton after taking some baby clothes to a farmer's wife for the owner of the saloon. A week of rain had swollen the streams and rivers in the valley until several bridges had become impassable, including the one that was safe when Betsy had gone out to the farm but unsafe when she came back.

The flood had swept Betsy away but she had managed to cling to a tree in the swollen waters. Screaming and crying, she was about to lose her hold when she saw Eddie coming. Eddie knew it was dangerous. Eddie knew exactly what he was doing when the stopped, leapt from his wagon and managed to wade to the tree. He got Betsy out, got her to drier land –

And then the waters surged and took him away. They found his body a mile downstream, washed up in some rocks. Betsy was all right, but Eddie was gone.

"He was my friend," Heath said from the pulpit of the negro church Eddie had attended. He looked out at a congregation of black and white faces, maybe the first time he could remember negroes and white people coming together for anything, much less coming together in tears. "Hero is an overused word, but Eddie was a hero and not just on the day he saved Betsy from those flood waters. How many of us knew it was Eddie who helped out in this very church when the influenza epidemic hit a few years ago? He risked getting sick himself to tend to the parishoners here who needed care. How many of us knew it was Eddie who found the Simpson boy caught in the loft of the livery stable under some hay bales and got him down and to the doc's? How many of us knew the kind of man Eddie really was?"

Heath had to stop for a moment. He saw his sister and mother crying in the third row, Nick and Jarrod comforting them. He swallowed and got his courage together again.

"Eddie was everybody's friend. It's just most of us didn't know it. Now he's given up his life to save a young woman he hardly knew. Now we all know what a hero he was. We can't deny it now, and we wouldn't anymore. Eddie was one of the best of us, and we aren't gonna see many more men like him."

Heath went back to the pew where his family sat. Nick put an arm around him, wishing he had paid more attention to Eddie in life, wishing he had known how close Eddie had been to his younger brother, kicking himself because he didn't know. Heath gave him a little smile and a pat on the leg.

After the service, there were so many mourners at the gravesite that the cemetery couldn't hold them all. The town itself was practically empty. Heath looked out at the sea of people and was grateful that at least now, they were all here. Even if they had barely noticed Eddie before, now they were here.

He didn't notice Betsy until she came up beside him and took his hand. "I'm ashamed of myself," she said quietly, crying.

"Ashamed?" Heath asked. "Why?"

"Because I thought I was a good person," she said. "I thought I tried to have a kind word for everybody in town, but I never gave Eddie another thought. I saw him around, but I never gave him another thought. He saved my life and – " She closed her eyes, unable to go on until she swallowed her tears away. "Heath, I'm so ashamed."

Heath squeezed her hand. "Eddie wasn't ashamed of you. Eddie thought you were worth giving his life for. Remember that. If you feel like you're ever slighting anybody else, remember Eddie and pay attention to that other person."

"I will," Betsy said. "Will you do something for me?"

"I'll try."

"Will you come by the saloon tonight? Tell me all about Eddie."

Heath smiled. "I'll be there."

The End


End file.
